ABT in DC-Kennedy Center, spring 2013Mixed Bill and Corsaire

Vasiliev delivered...but in clunky (heavy, even thunderous at times) manner, IMO. And those white tights did not help. Very personable/charismatic stage persona, so I'm rooting for him to (a) find a more becoming costume and (b) soften those landings.

The dancers in the other performances also wore white tights. Does even a star get to decide what everybody wears?

There can be slight alterations. At the Bolshoi, all of the Conrads wore slightly different costumes - some had the Greek 'skirt' version (Tsiskaridze, for ex.), while most wore tights...some tights darker than others. Back to ABT/Conrad: Vasiliev looked so embarrasingly chunky, that I had to apologize to my partner during the first intermission when he asked me "Didn't you say that Vasiliev was supposed to be good? He's heavy." It was being commented a lot by folks in our group. His chunky line is a serious-enough problem when it detracts from all of what he does so spectacularly.

Your friend apparently isn't familiar with a body feature known as "muscle". Vasiliev is totally buffed (he played Ali Saturday evening, and, no, there weren't rolls of fat showing when he didn't have a shirt on).

Unshapely or bulky muscles, or short, squat muscular bodies, or an unpleasant facial feature or personality type, are not aesthetically pleasing to all. Neither is a sloppy landing after a quadruple pirouette.

I can't recall every enjoying a dance performance less just because the dancers weren't all perfect 10's.